The health of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa has been the subject of feverish speculation on social media for more than a week, sparking a storm of death rumours and fake photographs of her in intensive care.
People hold a portrait of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha as they pray for her wellbeing in front of a hospital where she was being treated in Chennai on October 5, 2016. (AFP)
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The state government and her party, the AIADMK, have repeatedly quashed the rumours and the hospital she was admitted to on September 22, Apollo Hospital in Chennai, has issued repeated bulletins on her health.
But a shroud of secrecy surrounding her, silence on her ailment and a restriction on who can visit the chief minister have fuelled rumours and a political war-of-words. Her bitter rival and DMK patriarch, M Karunanidhi, even asked for a photo of her to be released, only to be rebuffed.
Here’s what the rumour mills churned out on Twitter:
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The photo was later confirmed to be fake. But that didn’t stop the rumours from flying thick and fast.
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The photo was later confirmed to be fake. But that didn’t stop the rumours from flying thick and fast.
Dhrubo Jyoti is Deputy Executive Editor at Hindustan Times, where they help oversee the newspaper’s daily news and opinion coverage. They are part of the leadership team of the newspaper and their daily responsibilities include news selection, commissioning and editing, apart from planning and executing special projects. Apart from this, they write on national affairs at the intersection of caste and sexuality, with a focus on elections, politics and the lifeworlds of the caste marginalised. Formally trained in physics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and Bose Institute, Kolkata, they made a switch to studying journalism from the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai. Over the past decade at Hindustan Times, they have worked at the National Desk, Page 1 team, Integrated Copy Desk and Special Stories Team, before running the opinion page as views editor for two years, and then moving back as Senior Editor of News Operations. In the past 12 years, they have reported on numerous national and state elections, specialising on caste-informed coverage of major moments in India’s history, and focussing on leading investigations into government accountability and social inequities. Their narrative non-fiction work aims to put Dalit voices at the core of India’s LGBTQIA+ movements.
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